Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Pulses are always a good fall back ingredient I find. After our weekend away I needed something interesting for dinner that might go well for lunch next day and I had a packet of black eyed beans still unopened from my last trip to Taj Stores and I was curious. I have never eaten them before though I have seen them on store shelves a million times. They are a pretty little bean, creamy in colour with a black scar across the middle from where they are harvested.

They are hugely popular in the American south to the extent of being the main ingredient in 'Hoppin John' a traditional dish for New Years Day but were probably introduced by African slaves. They grow well in hot climates and are still a major food source in Africa and are used as well in Indian cuisine, spiced for curries or combined with rice for a meal rich in protein. Here they add a little sunshine to the end of winter.

Like most beans these need soaking for at least a few hours but this dish is very simple and tasty.

Monday, January 29, 2007

No trip to Borough Market this week - spent the weekend in south-west France consuming many things duck amidst the snow and very pleasurable it was too. Though I did bring a string of garlic and some haricot tarbais back, that's not really the basis for a week's worth of food. So this week will be about what can be rustled up, mostly from the freezer, a process that began with cheesy peas Sunday night, with leftovers for lunch Monday.

Monday we were out to see Man of Mode at the National so Tuesday lunches were bought. Supper that night was an experiment - spiced black eyed beans - which was nice enough but needed more to go with it but was, nonetheless a good lunch cold on Wednesday.

Wednesday evening was time for Chinese with home cooked belly pork, peppers with black beans upon mounds of basmati rice - there was belly pork in the freezer from a few weeks ago and peppers came from the supermarket. Leftovers made for a fine lunch Thursday

Thursday night I was out, my sweetheart bought takeaway and we both bought lunch Friday. Supper will again come from the freezer, this time a tub of blanqutte de veau that we'll eat with rice

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Winter, summer, hot, cold I love spaghetti bolognese. It has been one of my favourite foods since I was a little kid - my mother makes great s'ghetti. It is a dish that gives great pleasure - lots of textures and flavours wrapped around long threads of pasta that are guaranteed to be messy and fun to eat. At the end of a bad day it will give you comfort, possibly even cheer you back to equilibrium. You come as close as it is possible to be that if you make this for dinner everyone will be happy. It goes well with a green salad and with garlic bread. Or you can simply eat it with nothing more than a fork and a generous sprinkle of fresh Parmesan.

Everybody is convinced that they make the best spag bol but they are wrong - I do! This version, in fact, would not pass muster with the culinary masters of Bologna. In 1982 the Bolognese delegation of Accademia Italiana della Cucina issued a recipe that confines the ingredients to beef, pancetta, onions, carrots, celery, tomato paste, meat broth, white wine, and milk. One day I will follow it exactly and then I will have to re-name this recipe. In the meantime try this one - it's lovely. This is best thought of as a slow dish. It is always better the next day - try and factor that in if you can.

Spaghetti with a rich meat sauce

1 large onion, peeled and roughly chopped4 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed4 slices smoked bacon, finely chopped2 tablespoons olive oil500g/1 lb coarsely minced beef2 x 400g tins of plum tomatoes1 tbspn tomato paste1 tspn tabasco1 tbspn worcestershire sauce1 bay leafScant teaspoon dried mixed herbsSalt and freshly ground pepper500g/1 lb pack dried Spaghetti - the thicker the betterGrated Parmesan to serveIn a large pan gently fry the onion and garlic in the olive oil till it starts to soften then add the bacon and continue cooking over a low heat till the bacon gives up its fat. Increase the heat and add the beef and stir to be sure that all the meat comes into contact with the pan and browns. Add the sauces and herbs and stir through then add the tomato paste and the tomatoes, squeezing them to break them up before they go into the pan - or chop them with a sharp knife for a slightly less messy (and fun) solution. Season generously, bring the sauce to a simmer then put the lid on the pan, turn the heat right down and leave to simmer for a couple of hours. At this point it is best to turn off the heat and leave the sacue to cool, then refrigerate overnight to allow the flavours to develop.Next day cook the spaghetti as directed on the packet and re-heat the sauce. Drain the pasta then return it to the pan and add the sauce and stir to thoroughly coat the strands. Leave on a low heat for 10-15 minutes to let the flavours meld and some of the sauce to soak in to the spaghetti. Serve sprinkled with Parmesan.This recipe makes enough for four huge bowls - it willl freeze well if you don't fancy it two nights running - but who can resist.

Monday, January 22, 2007

The market was remarkably quiet again on Saturday - lovely for us, less so for the traders. We started at Ginger Pig, as usual, and bought a good piece of boned, rolled shoulder pork to roast and John gave me an extra piece of rind to make extra crackling which delighted me because I am a greedy pig and simply love crackling, I also bought some braising steak, unsmoked bacon oysters and eggs - £17.50 We had a proper Sunday roast with the extra crackling going with cold slices of pork for lunchboxes

We bought Parma ham and buffalo mozzarella from the Italian stall - £7.50 Lunch Saturday was particularly fine with just some buttered ciabatta added

Carrots from Total Organics - 80p - Lunchbox crunch

I'm currently engrossed in Heston Blumenthal's book Perfect - a christmas gift from the lovely boyfriend who knows how to make me smile - and he talks about Yukon Gold being the perfect potato for roasting. Armed with this snippet I headed to Booths and asked the guy who owns it if he had any. He laughed and said you've been reading The Times. No, I said, Heston. Ah, he said, bloody big book for six recipes and no, I have no Yukon Gold. Had some last year for a while and couldn't sell them. I'm hoping he may reconsider. Onions, potatoes - red skins not gold fleshed, sugarsnap peas, cucumber, cavolo nero, green beans from Booths - £6.70 - Potatoes and cabbage as well as roasted butternut - that's been sitting in the vegetable rack for weeks - made a splendid supper Sunday night Cucumber and peas for lunchboxes

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Had she been Piccolo Signorina Muffetta she'd more than likely have started by making mozzarella and then, using the whey that remained after making the original cheese, she'd have recooked it to make some ricotta and grown up very, very beautiful, or at the very least unafraid of spiders.

Ricotta means re-cooked in Italian and it is, technically, not a cheese but rather a cheese by-product. The whey that results from the production of cheeses that are rennet, not acid, set - like mozzarella and provolone - is heated and then acid is added to the whey to make curd from the protein that still remains in the first production of whey. It takes about 24 hours to produce a fresh, fine grained, ever so slightly sweetish soft cheese that is frequently used in stuffed pastas. Its lightness means that it lends itself equally well to use in sweet things like cheese cakes and stuffed cannoli. Whipped it is lovely with some candied peel stirred through and spiced with a little nutmeg. The fresher the better, it is always wise to use it as soon as practicable.

I recently bought the River Cafe Pasta Book and, thoroughly smitten after trying a random few, I decided to simply work my way through the book - one recipe a week. The flaw with this plan was immediately obvious - it is January and the first chapter is 'raw sauces' - not a great time to be looking for sweet fat tomatoes. I have started on Chapter 2 instead - Cheese sauces - and the following was last night's supper. Most fine it was too.

Penne with Zucchini and Ricotta

200g/7oz penne

500g/1lb small zucchini, trimmed of stalks and tips

200g/7oz ricotta

2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely sliced

2 tbsp basil, roughly chopped

50g/2oz Parmesan, freshly grated

Extra virgin olive oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Cook the zucchini whole in boiling salted water for 2 minutes, then drain and slice at an angle 1 cm/ 1/2 inch thick.

Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a thick bottomed pan and fry the garlic gently till soft and vaguely golden. Add the sliced zucchini and toss over a low heat to combine the flavours. Season and add the basil.

Cook the penne in boiling salted water until al dente then drain. Add to the zucchini and stir to combine. Crumble over the ricotta. Serve with the Parmesan.

Monday, January 15, 2007

This week was different - I had somewhere I had to be Saturday morning so the lovely boyfriend was entrusted with a list and the responsiblity of the weekly shop at Borough. He says it was very quiet.

What I found when I got home was a cornfed chicken from Wyndhams - poached with some warm spices like cloves and star anise and fresh chilli for lunch boxes though the original plan had been to marinate and roast it but after a 10 mile walk in the country on Sunday I was too tired to be complicatedSausages and pork chops from Ginger Pig - sausages with mash and buttered cabbage for supper Saturday night with the other half of last weeks' savoy cabbage and potatoes from the week beforeand grilled pork and noodle soup Tuesday night

You may notice this is a much truncated version of the usual list of what I bought on Saturday. It is precisely what I had written on my list for my sweetheart - I had of course said as well that he should buy anything else he fancied and as he loves 'grazing' I was expecting a little cheese, perhaps some olives, a scotch egg, perhaps even a surprise purchase of something utterly unexpected but no - only the things on the list. Which gives me no wriggle room - I can pretty much only make what had seemed like a good idea when I made the list on Friday night so I have felt a bit constrained and without options. Because though we shop only once a week I normally pick up things that look nice or inspire me to make something or can be used in more than one dish. I shop with my senses - if it looks good and smells wonderful or feels perfect then I'll buy it. It is one of the neverending pleasures of Borough Market - the sensory overload, the temptation to try, the challenge to have something new.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Tofu - bean curd - is made in much the same way that cheese is made. Soy milk, made by soaking, grinding, boiling, and straining dried soybeans, is curdled by the addition of a coagulant - either acid or salt that leave no perceivable trace of taste - and the resulting curds are then pressed to form blocks. Though it is known that tofu originated in China, anything more exact about its origins than that is, like the origins of cheese, lost in the mists of time.

Rich in protein, and also calcium if produced traditionally using calcium sulfate, it is hugely versatile. It can be eaten raw, simply dipped in something flavourful like soy and chilli flakes or with a little pale pink pickled ginger. It can be shredded into soup or firmed up with a brief meeting with heat then stir fried with intense or fragrant sauces. Deep fried, it puffs up into light gold crusted clouds that will take up the juices of stocks and perfumes of spices. There is little to taste with tofu on its own - in fact bland is a good word - making it ideal to partner with both strong and subtle flavours. If it seems sour or the water it is packed in is cloudy then it has gone off and will be unpleasant.

The first few times I attempted to cook with it were disastrous. I bought what I know now to be silken tofu - which has the highest water content and is like a fine set custard - and it simply disintegrated whenever I went near it and dinner ended up as sandwiches. Not entirely defeated but definitely wary I still ate it often in restaurants and wondered at what alchemy they used to stuff it or stir fry it in lovely chunks. Then, after I spent some time reading the detailed information in Fuchsia Dunlop's book, I decided it could be time to try again. And finally, armed with a little more knowledge, it worked.

The very first time I cooked an edible meal that included a tofu dish I was thrilled - it was like unlocking a secret code. Having made a few different tofu dishes occasionally over the last few months, I feel like I have made tangible progress in the kitchen. I have a new ingredient that I can use well. This time I was even confident enough to make a few changes to the original recipe and still it worked.

Home Style Bean Curd

2 dried shiitake mushrooms

1 block of firm bean curd, drained, about 550g/1 1/4 lb

2 thick rashers of smoked bacon, cut into fine slices

1 tsp shaoxing wine

1 tbspn chilli sauce with fermented black beans

1 tbspn finely chopped garlic

1 tspn dried chilli flakes

200ml/7 fl oz light chicken stock

1/4 tsp dark soy sauce

salt

3/4 tsp potato flour mixed with 1 tbspn water

3 spring onions, green parts only sliced

1 tsp sesame oil

6 tbsp groundnut oil

Put the dried mushrooms in a bowl, pout over enough boiling water to cover and leave to soak for 30 minutes. Drain, squeeze dry, cut out and discard the stalks and slice the caps thinly. Set aside.

Put the bacon slivers into a bowl and mix with the Shaoxing wine.

Cut the bean curd into large squares and then cut these into triangular slices about 1cm/1/2 inch thick. Heat the wok over a high flame until smoke rises then add 3 tablespoons of the oil. Lay the bean curd on to the surface of the wok and fry, turning over once, until golden on both sides. Drain on kitchen paper and set aside. You may need to do this in a couple of batches.

Clean the wok if necessary and re-heat over a high flame then add the other 3 tablespoons of oil and swirl it around. Add the bacon and stir fry until the slivers separate. Add the chilli paste and stir fry till fragrant. Throw in the garlic and mushrooms and continue stir-frying until it smells divine. Finally add the chilli flakes, stir briefly then pour in the stock.

Return the bean curd to the wok with the dark soy sauce and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for several minutes to allow the flavours to penetrate the bean curd, seasoning with salt to taste.

Add the potato flour mixture and stir to thicken the sauce, then add the spring onions. Finally, off the heat, stir in the sesame oil and serve.

We had this with steamed basmati rice and pounded aubergine and green peppers. Don't be put off by the length of the instructions - it is straightforward and pretty quick and definitely a great dinner. For a vegetarian version, omit the bacon and use vegetable stock - but I'd still throw in the little bit of wine.

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Those of you who know many things will know that millet is used as bird seed. And despite the fact that I am not a budgerigar millet is what I cooked last night for supper. The reason for this slip off the path of the already tried and tested is a plea for help from my friend David. He's a healthy type who teaches Pilates and generally looks pretty amazing despite a penchant for fabulous cake. But what with new year and resolutions and the usual desire to generally be better that strikes us all in January he decided to sort out his diet. He took himself off to see a man who gave him a plan and included in this plan was millet as the grain of choice. Clueless as to its uses he came to me, assuming that my vast repertoire would run to recipes for millet. Except that all I knew about was the bird seed.

Doing a little research turned up a lot of information - it is a grass seed grown in Europe, the States and Australia as a cover crop, for livestock feed as well as for the birds, whereas in Asia and the Middle East it has been cultivated and eaten since prehistoric times and, initially, was probably more important than rice as a crop. It is still used as a source of flour in India and, suited as it is to growing in hot dry climes, it is an important staple in some of the poorest areas of Africa where it is used to make bread and the whole grain is cooked to make porridges and stews. Millet is also the basis for the brewing of some African beers.

David told me that he had looked in the supermarket and in Holland & Barret without success for packs of millet so it seemed that even finding it could turn out to be tricky. As with all things food my first stop was Borough Market and there, on the shelves of Total Organics, I found not only tiny golden millet seed but also flour. This was progress. Most of the uses I could find for it involved either making muesli or simply boiling it to use instead of rice - nothing that sounded wildly interesting. In fact generally a fairly cheerless collection - healthy with an added dash of hair shirt. After my experience of playing around with quinoa I was hoping to do something of the same with millet. When I'm aiming to cook lightweight food I find find spicy is best and that fitted in to the whole healthy point of this exercise.

So I started with the notion of Chinese/Indian and found that toasting the grain in oil with lightly cooked spices before steaming it and then serving it with the simple clean flavours of stir fried broccoli produced a quite wonderful dinner. Simple, quick and it's good for you. Perfect January food.

Rinse the millet with water and set aside to drain. Very gently heat the sesame oil in a heavy based pan and add the cumin and mustard seeds. Sauté for 10 seconds, until the mixture is aromatic. Add the onion and sauté for 5 minutes then add the millet and sauté for another 5 minutes. Bring the stock or water to a boil then add it with the salt to the sauteed millet mixture. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes or until all the liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat the let rest for 10 minutes then fluff with a fork and serve with the stir fried broccoli.Stir Fried Broccoli500g/1 lb broccoli cut into floretsA large knob of fresh ginger, peeled and grated1 small red chilli, finely chopped , seeds discarded if you don't want it too hot3 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed1 tbspn olive oil2 tbspn water1 tbspn fish sauce1/2 tbspn oyster sauceHeat the oil then fry the ginger, chilli and garlic till soft and fragrant. Add the broccoli and stir till coated then add the liquids and stir to incorporate. Bring to the boil then cover, reduce the heat and cook for about 5 minutes till the broccoli has softened but still retains a bit of crispy bite. Serve over spiced millet.

Monday, January 08, 2007

Borough Market was grey and quiet as the rain poured down Saturday morning. Most of the traders are back but some are still taking a well earned break to recover from the excesses - of their clientele - of the manic shoppers of the festive season.

I bought a lovely plump Label Anglais chicken at Wyndhams as well as a chicken breast - £14.50 - but for some reason it didn't occur to me to buy eggs Saturday night we had stir fried rice noodles with chicken and chilli. Sunday we had a beautifully golden chicken, roasted and stuffed with barley for our supper with enough left over to make lunches for the next few days

So I got eggs and two - as in a couple of - minute steaks from Wild Beef - £5.85 Had planned to have them as a sandwich for lunch over the weekend but it didn't happen so now they are in the freezer, along with the hoxton rye bread. Egg into stuffing and boiled for lunch on Thursday with salad

Lots of lovely fresh veg at Booths - bought sprouts, parsnips, onions, garlic, courgettes, cabbage, tangerines, cucumber, broccoli, sugarsnaps - £6.70 Sunday supper we had lots of veg - roasted potatoes from the week before last so they were a little past their best but still edible, parsnip and spring onion pudding, boiled carrots and sprouts. Broccoli made a brilliant stir fry with the millet experiment. Cabbage in a pasta dish Wednesday night using the fontina as well that I bought last week. Sugarsnaps into lunch boxes as well as tangerines and cucumber too. Still have the courgettes but they are okay and will go with pasta early next week. Onions, like garlic, I use so frequently it is like it is an unconscious movement

Carrots and a bag of millet and a cold bottle of hot ginger beer from Total Organics - £3.90 The millet is something new to me - had it Monday night with stir fried broccoli. Carrots boiled to go with roast dinner Sunday night then into lunch boxes raw in the week. Ginger beer was something different with lunch Saturday

Coffee from Monmouth - £9 - Every day for breakfast

Bread and milk from Neal's Yard - £8.20 - Milk for tea, coffee and cereals all week, ciabatta for lunch on Saturday with butter and vegemite and the hoxton rye went into the freezer for later - to go with chick pea soup Friday night for an easy supper

Friday, January 05, 2007

Late summer and early autumn the woods all over Europe are liberally sprinkled with wild mushrooms of every kind, one of the best of which is known as porcini in Italy and the mighty cep in France. They look for all the world like the mushrooms of fairy tales, their thick creamy stalks and large umbrella shaped heads absolutely had to be the model used for the plaster ones they sell in garden centres to go with your gnomes. When available fresh they are seriously substantial - in Rome I once shared a single mushroom as a starter and it was magical - and more than enough with pasta to follow.

The rest of the year they are available dried - a completely different kettle of fish, if you will. Good quality dried porcini have a multitude of uses and are well worth searching out. Larger, darker pieces with a strong aroma are a good indication that you have found what you are looking for, you don't want too many slices of stalk and you don't want to see lots of tiny holes because that indicates they have been infested with larvae at some point. I once opened a vacuum sealed tub and tipped the contents into a bowl only to watch teeny critters run for freedom as I started to add hot water. One of the best signs of good dried porcini is scent, perfume, aroma - call it what you will - but when you unseal the container you should be hit with a fabulous cloud of dark forest essence - deep, rich and seductive. It will translate into flavour in the final dish.

This recipe comes from the River Cafe Pasta Pocket Book and is a wonderful melding of tastes to create a really sumptuous bowl of pasta. The chilli adds a prickle of heat, the lemon cuts through the richness of butter and cream, the porcini and sage add depth - an amazing concoction. My sweetheart is not, in general, one for lemon in savoury dishes but with this he was practically licking the bowl.

Tagliatelle with Porcini and Sage

350g dried egg tagliatelle

35g dried porcini mushrooms, soaked in 200ml hot water for 20 minutes

8 fresh sage leaves, finely sliced

100g unsalted butter

2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

1 dried red chilli, crumbled

4 tbs double cream

Zest and juice of 1 lemon

50g Parmesan, freshly grated

Drain the porcini, keeping back the water. Rinse the now soft porcini in a sieve under a running tap to remove any grit. Roughly chop. Strain the soaking liquid through a sieve lined with kitchen paper to remove the grit.

Melt the butter in a thick bottomed pan, add the garlic , sage and chilli and fry gently until the garlic is lightly coloured. Add the porcini and stir to combine. Cook for 15 minutes, adding a few tablespoons of the soaking liquid to keep the porcini moist if necessary. When the porcini are soft, stir in the cream, lemon zest and juice and season.

Cook the tagliatelle in boiling salted water until al dente, then drain. Add to the sauce and toss. Stir in the Parmesan and serve.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Very possibly the quietest day of the year for Borough - many traders take a break, some stalls don't bring in much by way of fresh supplies and others, like Gastronomica have a mountain of beautiful cheeses and, unusually, no one queueing up to buy.

I set out with a fairly specific plan for dinner for New Year's Eve involving pork knuckle done to a recipe by Fuchsia Dunlop that is traditional in Hunanese celebrations with side dishes and rice. But I hadn't factored in that, after the huge sales for xmas and the quietness of the week that followed that Ginger Pig would be doing no slaughtering and what pork they did have would be already prepared. So that plan went by the board almost immediately. Instead I bought some braising steak to make red cooked beef, as well as some chicken and eggs and the most enormous piece of gammon about four inches across and weighing in at 2.7kg - can't imagine the size of the pig that came from - for a total of£28.70

Then we went to Mrs Elizabeth King's but there were no plain pork pies left and only very few game pies or pork and stilton so we came away empty handed

Gastronomica was a delight to see with dozens of fresh cheeses so we bought hunks of three different blocks, including a very fine light goat's cheese - £11

Thought about apples but Chegworth's stall wasn't there so we went to Total Organics but they had no carrots so we went to Booths and bought garlic and lettuce leaves and capsicums and aubergine and sugar snaps but not brussel sprouts as they looked a bit sad but did get some tangerines to brighten our basket - £6.40

No smoked salmon stall so we bought a scotch egg from the cooked food counter at Ginger Pig - £3

Bread and milk from Neal's Yard where there was no queue at all after the frenzy of the previous week - £6.70